VMWare or Flashbackup-Windows Policy??

[Richie913]

Hi,

I have recently taken over looking after our NetBackup estate and I was fimiliarizing myself with the policies that are currently set up and noticed that, even though the majority of our servers are virtual, the policies are using FlashBackup-Windows.

I had seen on documentation that VMWare should be selected when backing up virtual servers that are vsphere based, which ours are. However, the policies were set up a while ago by someone who no longer works for the company so I cannot ask him why he set them up with the Flashbackup-Windows policy.

My reason for posting on here is really just to see if people think it would be better to change the policy type, as we do get random backup failures for connection loses, etc. They could be completely unrelated but we have daily diff jobs that seem to work fine 4 out of 5 days.

I am just wondering if people think that jobs would run better if the policy was changed, as I am sure that if a policy was created for VMWare it was created for a reason? Or am I just thinking too much into it and should just carry on with the current policy?

Thanks for any advice you have!

[sdo · Accepted solution]

Depends upon your version of NetBackup.

FlashBackup-Windows was the older style policy type, typically used in the old VCB days.

VMware type policies will give you enhanced functionality.

I doubt the policy type is causing your backup errors.

[nbutech]

Hello,

Earlier the policy type was called as Flashbackup-Windows which has changed. Please refer the link below to change it to Vmware

Upgrade guidelines for the VMware policy type

https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.000068148

[watsons]

If I were you, I am going to start configuring VMware policies for those data - meanwhile keep those Flashbackup policies in schedule run until I got the VMware one working fine.

Flashbackup for VM backup is something old, and quite possibly the future Netbackup is going to drop its support. Would better do it now than later.

[Richie913]

Thanks guys - really appreciate peoples opinions and suggestions.

I think I will look at creating a test policy with a few low profile servers and see how I get on then look at moving the servers across to the vmware policy. 
One of our biggest issues is the time it takes for some of our servers to backup, so I am looking at the Accelerator option - and from reading some other forums this seems to be used heavily with the vmware policy.  

I don't think we have had anyone really look at our NBU solution for a while so I think its a bit of bed time reading for me on current best practises and looking at getting the best out of the features available to us.

Thank you again!

[sdo]

...because of your backup duration issues... then something to remember is...

...when adding a new backup client to a policy (or even deleting a backup client from a backup policy and then re-adding exactly the same backup client name back to exactly the same backup policy) then NetBackup sees this backup client as requiring an initial full backup... so, if you take this action at a point during the week of what are normally incremental (cinc or diff) backups, then these incremental backups effectively become full backups... so, if you have backup duration issues, then it might be prudent to make your changes at the apporpiate point in time between the last of the week's incremental backups and before what is normally the next full backup.

[Marianne]

About that 'bed time reading ' - add the 'Vmware nuts and bolts ' blogs : https://www.veritas.com/community/blogs/nuts-and-bolts-netbackup-vmware